That Time I Got Reincarnated as an Underground Labyrinth Manager

Carrion blocked Milim's punch.

Immediately, he distanced himself from her.

Let's try that "spell" Chishiya-san mentioned last time.

"Hey! Milim!"

Carrion shouted, "Chishiya-san said he knows you're just pretending!"

"If you cause trouble again, no snacks next time!"

His voice was so loud,

Even the people evacuating on the ground heard it.

Albis commanded the townsfolk.

"Everyone, move quickly. His Majesty is buying us time!"

Then she looked up into the sky.

What are you even saying, Carrion-sama?

That's Demon Lord Milim.

One of the oldest Demon Lords.

You think she'll stop over snacks?

In front of the crystal ball,

Clayman smiled coldly.

Where does that ridiculous confidence even come from?

Pretending?

How could that be?

He had already used the Control Orb to dominate Milim.

It had taken over a month.

You're saying she's been faking for more than a month?

Impossible!

He had tested everything—every method he could think of—and found nothing.

She couldn't possibly be acting.

But then, his smile froze.

Because on the screen, Milim actually stopped moving.

And he never gave an order to stop.

In the sky above—

Milim pursed her lips.

Her expression twisted into something halfway between awkward and mischievous.

Fun? Or food?

A real dilemma.

Carrion stood there stunned.

She's not controlled?

She's really pretending?!

He clenched his fists and growled.

"Milim, you're not actually faking, are you?"

"Huh?"

Milim looked up at the sky, put her hands behind her back, and started whistling.

"Nope, I'm not."

"I—I'm definitely being controlled. Oww, my head hurts, what do I do?"

She dramatically clutched her head in fake pain.

Carrion: "?"

Albis: "???"

Clayman: "???"

Everyone watching was stunned.

My head hurts so much!

Could your acting be any worse?

This is absurd. Truly absurd. Absurd to the point of absurdity!

But the most confused person was Clayman.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

How could this be?

Milim's totally fine?

The Orb the President gave him didn't work?

Then why did she follow his every order for a whole month?

Did she just feel like it?

Was she messing with him?

Clayman's face twitched violently.

They played me like a fool!

Unforgivable! This humiliation must be avenged!

———————

Milim struggled for a bit, but in the end… food beat fun.

She tore the orb off her neck and crushed it into powder.

Her "smart" IQ had claimed the high ground.

It was fun hanging out with Chishiya and there was food.

So, what was the point of staying here?

She'd been caught anyway.

Might as well head back and enjoy herself.

He must've missed her. Best friends always do.

So—

Milim floated forward and put a finger to her lips.

"Carrion, don't tell Chishiya about this, okay?"

"I'm gonna pretend I was never here."

With that—

Her figure shot off like a meteor.

Leaving everyone staring after her in stunned silence.

———————————

Labyrinth

Chishiya was counting money in his room.

Sometimes, life's just… magic.

Last month, he was still worried about not having enough funds to construct his Wonders.

This month? Rich.

Over 200,000 gold coins. Build? Build it all!

Build as many Wonders as he wanted!

They had capital now.

Thank you, Falmuth, for the generous donation.

And, on top of that, the Labyrinth had exploded in popularity over the past three days.

The adventurers flocking in were already writing their own guides.

Only three days since opening, and already going viral?

Chishiya tapped his chin.

Time to adapt.

He couldn't let the adventurers clear everything too easily.

But he couldn't make it too hard either.

Balance was key.

He opened his account.

Currently: 230,000 gold coins.

This reserve already surpassed most small nations.

And that wasn't counting annual revenue from Labyrinth goods and partnerships with the Chamber of Commerce.

All things considered, the average yearly profit was around 30,000 gold coins.

Not bad. For this world, it put them in the upper-middle tier.

But compared to Earth?

Still pathetic.

30,000 gold coins converted to RMB was about 1.5 billion.

Too low.

What Fortune 500 company only pulls in billions a year?

Chishiya's goal was to go big or go bankrupt.

All or nothing.

If you're going to do something, do it right.

Of course, Chishiya also understood the comparison wasn't fair.

This world was too primitive.

What frustrated him most was the way people thought here.

Trying to popularize even simple ideas was like pulling teeth.

Take online shopping, for example.

In a world with magic, no one had thought of that?

In the real world, everything was built brick by brick, backed by generations of innovation and sweat.

Maybe the convenience of magic had just made people lazy.

With magic this convenient, shouldn't civilization be more modern?

"Tch."

Chishiya shook his head.

"Looks like I'll have to lead the tech revolution myself."

"Time to give the otherworld natives a proper shock."

———————————

Over the next few days,

Chishiya holed up in his room, completely focused on research.

Everyone else had their own theories.

But the most popular one?

Shion was bringing him new prototype dishes every day,

And Chishiya-sama was hiding to avoid food poisoning.

"Achoo—"

Chishiya rubbed his nose.

"Someone must be talking about me…"

Putting the distractions aside,

He picked up the blueprints on his desk and smiled.

"Done!"

It had taken three full days.

Using the Lord of Wisdom, he had sorted through everything useful in his memory and designed two new "systems."

Not that kind of system.

These were intelligent applications of projection magic, structured by the logic refined through the Lord of Wisdom.

They were called: [Labyrinth Forum] and [Rankings]

Using projection magic, they would be installed on every level of the Labyrinth.

Anyone entering the Labyrinth could see and interact with them.

Chishiya's design was based on modern online games.

Any adventurer could post info in the [Forum], and the company would issue official updates at set intervals.

There would be three [Rankings]:

[Progress Ranking]: Based on how many levels players had cleared.

[Boss Ranking]: Based on how quickly players defeated level bosses.

[PvP Ranking]: Arena-style ranking based on player duels inside the Labyrinth.

(To be continued.)

***

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